Lesson Plan: Teaching about Hazards and Disasters through Climate-related Examples (Sea-Level Rise and Flooding due to Melting of Polar Ice)

As a high school or undergraduateGeography or Earth Sciences teacher, you can use this set of computer-based tools to help you in teaching topics such as Hazards, and Disasters: Natural and Man-made.
This lesson plan allows students to understand how the melting of polar ice due to climate change can result in an increase in sea levels globally. The activity will also allow students to examine real data on sea-level rise, determine the reasons for climate change-related flooding, and visualize the effects of such flooding on vulnerable coastal regions.

Thus, the use of this lesson plan allows you to integrate the teaching of a climate science topic with a core topic in Geography or Earth Sciences.

Changes in Global Sea Level

Questions

Use this lesson plan to help your students find answers to:

1. Name the largest glaciers (in terms of volume) in the world.

2. What would be the impact of the melting of large glaciers on coastal locations across the world?

3. What are the factors that determine the vulnerability of a coastline to flooding caused by rising sea levels?

4. What is the likely impact of a sea-level rise of 100 cm on San Francisco and Los Angeles?

A classroom/laboratory activity that introduces the relationship between climate and the cryosphere, explains how sea-level rise can be predicted (based on average global temperature change), and triggers a discussion on the potential impacts of sea-level rise.

Here is a step-by-step guide to using this lesson plan in the classroom/laboratory. We have suggested these steps as a possible plan of action. You may customize the lesson plan according to your preferences and requirements.

1. Introduce the topic through a classroom/laboratory activity

• Introduce the relationship between climate and the cryosphere, and the effect of increasing average global temperature on sea levels by conducting the classroom/laboratory activity, “Future of the Cryosphere: Sea Level Rise”, from EarthLabs at SERC, Carleton

• In this activity, students will examine actual data for sea-level change, and will perform data analysis and calculations in MS Excel to determine coastal vulnerability and shoreline response to sea-level rise.

• Conduct the activity described in the PowerPoint presentation (module).

• OR

• For high-school level:

• Next, explore the topic in an interactive and engaging manner by using the visualization (maps and tools), “OCOF Our Coast Our Future Flood Map”, developed by the CoSMoS project team.

• Access the visualization at http://data.pointblue.org/apps/ocof/cms/index.php?page=flood-map

• Facilitate an activity in which students can change the amounts of sea-level rise and storm scenario frequency, and observe the corresponding effects for specific locations on the coast of California.

• Compare and discuss various flooding scenarios and the vulnerability of different locations.

Use the tools and the concepts learned so far to discuss and determine answers to the following questions:

• Name the largest glaciers (in terms of volume) in the world

• What would be the impact of the melting of large glaciers on coastal locations across the world?

• What are the factors that determine the vulnerability of a coastline to flooding caused by rising sea levels?

• What is the likely impact of a sea-level rise of 100 cm on San Francisco and Los Angeles?

The tools in this lesson plan will enable students to:

• describe the relationship between climate and the cryosphere, and the possible impact of an increase in average global temperature on sea levels

• explain sea-level rise and the reasons for the rise

• discuss the factors that determine the vulnerability of coastal regions to inundation caused by rising sea-levels

If you or your students would like to explore the topic further, these additional resources will be useful.

All the teaching tools and images in our collated list are owned by the corresponding creators/authors/organizations as listed on their websites. Please view the individual copyright and ownership details for each tool by following the individual links provided. We have selected and analyzed the tools that align with the overall objective of our project and have provided the corresponding links. We do not claim ownership of or responsibility/liability for any of the listed tools.

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CLIMATE CHANGE AND YOU

We welcome contributions to our collated suite of pedagogical tools that can be used to teach concepts in climate change along with the core curriculum in science and mathematics.

To recommend a relevant tool that you have developed, modified or used, please CONTACT us.

Contact Email : tropicsu@iubs.org

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Disclaimer

All the pedagogical tools in our collated list are owned by the corresponding creators or authors or organizations as listed on their websites. Please view the individual copyright and ownership details for each tool by following the individual links provided.

We have selected and analyzed the tools that align with the overall objective of our project and have provided the corresponding links. We do not claim ownership of or responsibility or liability for any of the listed tools. Images copyrights remain with the respective owners.